


but what do I do with you, boy

by forochel



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Growing Up, Identity, M/M, Melancholy, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: AU in which Jinyoung steals hearts because ... he's still figuring that one out, really."I'mfixing it," he says to Jaebeom, scooping Nora into his arms. "Aren't I, Nora-darling? Who's a good girl?""You are corrupting my cat.""She's a cat," Jinyoung says, as Nora butts him in the chest, satisfied and full. He wonders how cats feel, when they have extra hearts. If they feel personalities the way humans do. “They're by definition corrupt."





	but what do I do with you, boy

**Author's Note:**

> title from gin wigmore's [kill of the night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RaJW_fVTyQ). 
> 
> [on thursday night]  
> me: I cannot believe I'm spending 160 bucks just because I wrote 2 fics about jjp and am now emotionally invested and feel bad about the concert not being sold out.  
> bysine: [sends me ficbits]  
> me: hey what if I wrote a kpop heartstealers fic?
> 
> so now I am going to tonight's gig because I have written 3 fics about jjp and am too emotionally invested. this is set in the same parallel 'verse as bysine's [vomit, maybe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/531379).
> 
> also if you're still a seungri fan, uh ... a) why; b) you're not gonna like the first line so turn back now I guess.

* * *

"Look," Jinyoung says acidly, "I might steal hearts, but at least I'm not Lee Seungri and, you know. His ilk."

"I'm not sure the bar should be at human trafficking rape-drug corruption levels of terribleness," Jaebeom tells him. It’s been almost two years since the news broke and barring, like, genocide, that’s pretty much still the nadir of human existence, probably.

“ _You_ said I wasn’t a terrible person,” Jinyoung retorts, eyes stinging.

Jaebeom sighs. It makes Jinyoung feel worse.

“No, you’re not. I just thought ...”

“I’m trying.” Jinyoung’s entire body is tensing up. “I really am.”

He can _see_ Jaebeom biting back the words.

“I just ... wanted to know.”

So Jinyoung slipped up earlier this week after over half a year. And Jaebeom had to go on a wild chase with him through wintery Busan just to look for the fanboy who’d been so incomprehensibly, giddily exuberant at the fansign. It’s Jinyoung’s fatal flaw, his _hamartia_ : curiosity. He wonders if Odysseus was a heart-stealer too. He wonders if Jaebeom meant anything by giving him that translation. Probably. Overthinking is just another one of those things that they share.

“You always want to know,” Jaebeom sighs. He looks exhausted. Jinyoung wants to snap at him: who is he to feel exhausted when Jinyoung’s the one who feels like he’s covered in oil-slick, who feels like he’s always taking one step forward and two steps back to being half a person at best? Or maybe he’s exactly one whole person, but keeps forgetting how to just be.

* * *

The first time Jinyoung stole a heart was entirely by accident. It was when he was in kindergarten, because five year old Jinyoungie liked Yoo-ssaem so much.

One of his classmates had a guardian who was a heart-stealer too. The uncle had done a double-take when he saw Jinyoungie glowing calmly and warmly, and then gone ashen when he looked at Yoo-ssaem, handing off his niece to him. Jinyoung knows now that Yoo-ssaem must've had that weird flatness in her eyes.

Long story short, he'd told Jinyoungie to return Yoo-ssaem's heart, Jinyoungie cried a lot out of confusion and because it felt so nice, but then Yoo-ssaem didn't come to school a week later and Jinyoungie had been feeling all weird and hyper the whole week. That uncle showed him how to return hearts, and Jinyoung stopped stealing hearts until he was 13 and at dance class and wanted to know what passion felt like.

Then at 15 he tied for first place at the JYP open auditions with Jaebeom, and something told him never to try stealing this boy's heart.

* * *

There are so many others like him in the industry, though.

Kim Heechul tipping him a wink backstage of some music show, when Jinyoung was slipping a random sunbae back their heart. The loose arrogance hadn't sat well in his chest.

Wheein from Mamamoo, staring at him wide-eyed as they both caught each other in the act of stealing hearts at an award show. Jinyoung'd tipped her a jaunty dip of his non-existent hat, feeling the excitement of winning a rookie award slosh around in his chest.

In JYP: Junho-hyung raising an eyebrow at him as he walked around with three hearts. Telling him that if he wanted to keep hearts, he'd better find things to put them in.

Jinyoung stored hearts in Jaebeom's cats after that.

So it was slightly inconvenient when Jaebeom moved out of the dorms and Jinyoung no longer had handy containers ... and also when he forgot that he'd stored one of the vocal trainer's hearts with Nora, his favourite cat and accomplice. She always was cuddlier when he gave her a heart.

It was only when he overheard some of the Stray Kids talking worriedly about the trainer looking rather wan that he remembered, and then had to invite himself home with Jaebeom.

"I'm _fixing it_ ," he says to Jaebeom, scooping Nora into his arms. "Aren't I, Nora-darling? Who's a good girl?"

"You are corrupting my cat."

"She's a cat," Jinyoung says, as Nora butts him in the chest, satisfied and full. He wonders how cats feel, when they have extra hearts. If they feel personalities the way humans do. “They're by definition corrupt."

Jaebeom sighs. He drives Jinyoung, who scooped the heart up out of Nora and back into his own thoracic cavity, to go return the heart anyway.

* * *

"Do you regret knowing?" Jinyoung asks Jaebeom, one of the occasions they're in Singapore. It's stickily hot, like being in a sauna. They're in the hotel pool, sitting half-submerged on stone seats at the bar. Jinyoung stole the chatty bartender's heart for fun, but Jaebeom — who, for someone who isn't a heartstealer, has developed some kind of sixth sense for when Jinyoung does this — made him put it back.

Jinyoung at least got to enjoy the hazy feeling of contentment and being sure of one's place in the world for ten minutes.

And now ... he at least has a virgin mojito ("You've already had one drink and we have a flight this evening") and a platter of lamb satay (recommended by the bartender, who had also gone on a 10 minute spiel about all the other places in Singapore with better satay — “don’t go to Lao Par Sat, it’s a tourist trap” — until Jinyoung had apologetically informed him they would have to check those places out next time).

Jaebeom takes his time chewing thoughtfully on one of the skewers, dipping it in peanut sauce and biting again as he mulls over Jinyoung's question.

"No," Jaebeom says finally. "I'd rather know."

* * *

This is how Jinyoung tells Jaebeom:

JJP falls apart — financial reasons, sales, the capricious whims of JYP-PD-nim. Gods know what.

Jinyoung is ravenous. He is so angry. Sad. Hurt. Scared. A perfect storm of feelings he cannot begin to unpick. He thinks very seriously about stealing JYP-PD-nim's heart and letting him die.

Then he thinks about having to know what it's like, being JYP, the man he already has to share a name with.

Jinyoung comes as close to stealing Jaebeom's heart as he ever has.

Instead, he steals his best friend's.

Day6 is but a dream; a glimmer in JYP's deceptively friendly eyes. Wonpil is practising piano, stretching his range, when Jinyoung bangs his way into the small practice room.

Between one breath and the next he's got Wonpil's heart cradled under his ribs and — and it doesn't help.

Of course it doesn't: Wonpil being a trainee, the only thing Jinyoung would be able to taste is desperation and fearful longing. Determination with a bitter aftertaste. Maybe that was Jinyoung's own heart.

"J-Jinyoungie?" Wonpil stutters out, staring at him. "You're crying?"

"Fuck," Jinyoung spits out, shoves Wonpil's heart back in place so roughly that Wonpil hiccups, before spinning back around to bang his way out of the room.

At the time, Jinyoung's reasoning is thus: his future is ruined anyway. Whoever heard of being _un-debuted_? He may as well ruin himself all the way.

So he waits at - at home, in their dorm, for Jaebeom to come back.

And the moment Jaebeom shuffles in through the door, Jinyoung just lets the words go: "I steal hearts."

It is, in retrospect, not the best phrasing.

Because Jaebeom stares at him, nonplussed, shocked out of his own hurt and disappointment. Then he barks out the meanest laugh Jinyoung has heard and will ever hear from him. "Not enough, apparently."

This is apparently the spark needed for the kindling Jinyoung has been building in his chest all this while. The dry ugly dead things in his soul.

He doesn't even like thinking about the things they screamed at each other that evening. Doesn't like thinking about the fact that he'd had his sticky fingers all over Jaebeom's heart, so close to taking it, just to _prove a stupid point_ , just so he could back up the breaking scream of “NOT LIKE THAT, YOU ASSHOLE!”

Doesn’t like remembering the look on Jaebeom’s face as he registered what Jinyoung was showing him. The fear in his eyes.

* * *

The violence of self-disclosure is what shakes him the most about song-writing.

Jinyoung is looking at the words he’s poured in one unexpected deluge onto the pages of his notebook. Pressure is already building in his sinuses and tears have already started to clog his closing throat. He _hates_ crying on planes. Flight descent is going to be such a pain.

“Hyungie,” Yugyeom whispers across the half-height barrier between their seats. “Are you okay?”

Starting, Jinyoung blinks back the tears. He thought Yugyeom was still asleep.

“Yes,” he says. He sounds a little stuffed despite his best efforts. “Just writing.”

“Song lyrics?” Yugyeom asks, voice lilting with curiosity.

Jinyoung snaps his notebook shut. “Yes. Go back to sleep, Gyeom-ah.”

When he glances over, concern is painted across Yugyeom’s face. It occurs to him that the song just beginning to take shape out of raw feeling might be more broadly applicable than initially meant.

“I’m fine,” he says with some exasperation. “Honestly.”

Yugyeom makes an unconvinced noise, but slides his sleeping mask back over his eyes anyway. Jinyoung kind of wants to reach over and poke at his cheeks, the baby fat that used to cause Yugyeom such grief now sadly melted away. Sad for Jinyoung, anyway. But Yugyeom’s already started wheezing a little: little baby snores that make Jinyoung’s heart, currently all alone in his chest, squeezes a little.

He turns back to flip his notebook back open. Out of the corner of his eye there’s movement.

Jaebeom’s gaze is piercing across the aisle even in the dimmed cabin. But all he says is: “He’s grown a lot.”

Feeling distinctly like he’s reenacting conversations that older relatives have had over his own head at family reunions, Jinyoung says, “It’s kind of unreal that he’s twenty now.”

Planes are weird liminal places anyway, but it’s also kind of unreal to be looking at Jaebeom, who’s lit only by the residual ambience from Jinyoung’s reading light, while sat in first class seats. So far away from their initial stumble, and with so much more murkiness ahead of them. They’re not exactly explosively popular.

The desire to feel anything other than his own doubts and fears abruptly surges in his chest. There’s no one else around, though — Jinyoung is caught between Jaebeom and Yugyeom, the crew all holed away in their break area. He’s hardly going to call for someone just to take their heart, not when Jaebeom’s still pinning him in place with those eyes. Not that Jaebeom’s ever said anything judgemental when he notices Jinyoung being slightly _more_ than he is with only his heart.

Mostly he helps Jinyoung keep track of hearts so that Jinyoung can return them in time. There’s so much to think about, afterall.

Jaebeom hums, so low it almost blends in with the background whir of the plane engines. “He’s a very young twenty.”

 _Unlike us_ , he doesn’t have to say.

“We’ll keep him that way, right?” The wide arm of Jinyoung’s seat is digging into his hip as he leans over, so their heads can tilt close together in the dark quiet of the cabin. So they can hear each other whisper better, maybe.

“Sure,” Jaebeom agrees, eyes crinkled in amusement. “Hey, Jinyoungie. Come over here if you want to talk. There’s an empty seat next to the window. Hyung left to go talk with the other staff in business class and never came back.”

Jinyoung taps his notebook, thinks about going back to the lyrics. He’s too tired and too wired to fall asleep. Buzzing all over now, a storm of emotions churning and twisting under his ribs. Jaebeom’s as good a distraction as any. Better than most.

“Okay,” he whispers, and carefully sneaks across the aisle, climbing as gracefully as he can over Jaebeom.

Life, Jinyoung thinks, as Jaebeom shifts to curl in towards him, sleepy smile on his face, would be a lot easier if he could just let himself reach in and hold Jaebeom’s heart in his hands again.

* * *

"I think there's something," Jinyoung starts, stops. Taps the butt of his pencil against the table. "Heartstealers. There's something fundamentally wrong with us."

It's not like he wants to _want_ to. He just ... does. It's maybe the one thing in Jinyoung's life that he isn't disciplined about. The exception proving the rule. Except this has been a rule for far longer than any of Jinyoung's others.

Jaebeom puts the sheaf of lyrics they were rewriting away, shuts his laptop.

He's got his listening face on, the one Jinyoung's watched him painstakingly grow into.

Sometimes Jinyoung feels like his own calm, gentlemanly image is — just that. An image. Papier-mâché over the festering ugliness of who he really is.

He tried stealing Taecyeon-hyung's heart once, because Taecyeon's been accused of being gentlemanly too. Junho-hyung stopped him, eyes snapping. It's the meanest Jinyoung has ever seen Junho.

"I just want to _know_ ," he protested.

Junho looked at him sadly. "Some things you have to figure out for yourself. You think people who don't steal hearts know?"

" _You_ do it too," Jinyoung said mulishly.

Junho shrugged. "Rarely."

Jinyoung thinks about what Junho told him when Jinyoung asked why. Why he stole hearts.

"When I'm particularly lonely," Junho said. His smile — the smile all his fans swoon over — looked indescribably sad then.

"It's like ..." Jinyoung hauls himself back into the present moment, with Jaebeom catty-corner from him. How long has it been since he's had time alone with Jaebeom like this? "Why do we do this? Why do I do this?"

Jaebeom cocks his head to one side, looking for all the world like one of his cats. "I was under the impression it ... feels good."

"It's like drugs," Jinyoung says bluntly.

He's heard it compared to drugs before. Doyoung mentioned it in between MC segments, offered to introduce Jinyoung to some support group thing one of his SM sunbae put together. Alcoholics Anonymous, except for heartstealers. When Jinyoung asked him how that was working for him, Doyoung shrugged. There was a certain dry irony in his voice when he said, “It’s a work in progress. But aren’t we all?”

"...Ah," says Jaebeom. And because Jaebeom knows him best, probably better than he knows himself, he asks: "Do you want to quit?"

And therein lies the rub.

"I ..." he trails off, spins his pencil across his knuckles, watches it go skittering off and land in the no man's land between their folded legs. Jinyoung doesn't want to look up. Doesn't want to see what disappointment in _him_ looks like on Jaebeom's face.

They never really talked about it after Jinyoung's confession. After Jinyoung told Jaebeom so fiercely that he always put hearts back — like _not killing people_ was something to be proud of — and after Jaebeom asked him not to steal any of their new members' hearts. Jaebeom never mentioned himself. Jinyoung never asked why.

"I hate it," Jinyoung says. The truest thing he can say. The thing he is most sure of. "I hate this, about myself."

There's a whisper of cloth and then Jaebeom's arms around him.

"It's ... different," Jaebeom says, so quietly it's almost a whisper. Jinyoung's face is half-squished into his chest. He's glad he still hasn't taken his contacts out. "But it's not ... not something to be hated."

Jinyoung jerks away at that. "Don't lie to me. It's weird. I almost killed my kindergarten teacher, did you know that? Who wants —"

"But you didn't," Jaebeom says.

"Fuck, who ... most people don't do this. They can't do this and they don't ... they just don't. So there has to be something ... I don't know, broken." Jinyoung thumps his own chest. "Here."

"You're not broken," Jaebeom says stolidly. He's still half-crouched over Jinyoung. It's going to do his back in if he keeps it up.

"Jaebeom-ah," sighs Jinyoung. "You don't even know half of it."

"I know you," Jaebeom insists. He lets Jinyoung tug him down from his awkward squat thing.

"And I know that you're not a ... a bad person, or whatever you're thinking."

"I'm not a _good_ person."

Jaebeom stares at him for a long moment, long enough for Jinyoung to start squirming. He knows he's the one who started this but god, he wants the conversation to be over already. How did they get from revising lyrics to a song about staying true to yourself to — oh, well. Jinyoung probably answered his own question. He's had an entire conversation in his own head and Jaebeom _still_ hasn't said anything. For fuck's sake.

"Hyung?" He prompts.

"You are," Jaebeom says, taking Jinyoung's hand like he can tell that Jinyoung can't stand to be touched any more than that right now. Sometimes Jinyoung wonders if Jaebeom's stolen his heart in secret before, if Jaebeom's just that stealthy. But no. Jinyoung can tell that Jaebeom's feelings are churning away steadily behind the even insistence in his voice. He didn't have to steal Jaebeom's heart to read that off him. "You're a good person. You aren't always ... nice. But those two things aren't the same."

Jinyoung turns sideways to lie down in the gap between the coffee table and the sofa. He puts his head in Jaebeom’s lap.

“You know, hyung ...”

“Mm?” Jaebeom hums absently, one hand having already found its way to playing with Jinyoung’s hair.

Jinyoung closes his eyes. “You’ve grown up really well.”

The fingers carding through his hair pause. Jinyoung keeps his eyes shut, holds his breath. They tug a bit before continuing. Looks like Jaebeom’s going to let him derail their heart-to-heart (hah) for now.

“You stopped me from murdering Bambam and Yugyeom literally just this week.”

“Well, you know, GOT7 can’t have fewer than 7 members.”

“We can always replace them with Bang Chan and, uh.”

Jinyoung laughs. “You’re the worst sunbae.”

“ _You_ name another trainee born in 1997.”

“... we should just keep the terrible two.”

“You’d miss Yugyeom too much anyway.”

Jinyoung reaches up to blindly pinch Jaebeom. Somewhere, anywhere.

Yelping, Jaebeom catches his hand and pins it to his side. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you deflecting either, Jinyoungie.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Jinyoung says. Thumps his head hard against Jaebeom’s thigh for emphasis.

Jaebeom is silent for a while. It's acquiescence, for now. The quiet spools out in their living room. The kids left it to them. Jackson’s in China. Mark is gaming in his room. Jinyoung catalogues where everyone is in his head, what they might be doing.

* * *

“Jinyoungie,” Jackson says when the long-ass day is over and they’re all exhaustedly picking at the remains of their black pig samgyeopsal. “Did anyone try to slip you their number when you were taking orders?”

Next to him, Jaebeom drops the perilla leaf wrap he’s been painstakingly layering.

The cameras are off, the staff all off at their own table eating and firmly ignoring their existence for forty-five more minutes.

“Did anyone try to slip _you_ their number when you were busy selling our food truck?” Jinyoung retorts.

“An ajumma gave me her number,” Mark contributes. “When I was making her tangerine juice.”

“Hyung was too busy taking selcas with fans,” Youngjae says. It is unclear which hyung he is referring to.

“Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have slipped him their number,” Bambam points out. Yugyeom’s passed out next to him, hand curled around a trailing tail of Bambam’s untucked shirt. He’s just a little boy, really.

Jinyoung has a secret that he hasn’t told Jaebeom: he’s tried on the heart of everyone in their group except for Jaebeom and Yugyeom. Some mysteries he didn’t actually want solved. Or spoilt. He doesn’t know if this is self-discipline or just him and more of his desires. He _wants_ to know; he doesn’t _want_ to know.

* * *

He stole Min Yoongi’s heart once, right out from under Kim Seokjin’s nose.

Jaebeom had asked, when this was all still new to him, if Jinyoung would ever fiddle with his stolen hearts. It’s not Jinyoung’s thing, not really; he’s more motivated by what it feels like to wear someone else’s heart than messing around with them. He wants the pure, unadulterated experience.

Kunta scratched Jinyoung when he retrieved Min Yoongi’s heart after receiving a text from an unknown number: _Give Yoongi his heart back. We’re going on tour.-- S._

So Jinyoung saved the number and returned world rap superstar BTS Suga’s heart before he fell over and died. But not without a little adjustment. It’s always a sign of a good heart when the cats don’t want to give them up. And Jinyoung’s never felt so sad for someone whose heart he’s stolen in his _life_. Everyone deserves a little happiness. He figures, anyway, that if Seokjin doesn’t like the interference he could always just reach in and do a bit of readjustment himself.

It’s not like Jinyoung’s _heartless_.

He’s heard of people who are, and that’s why they literally need to hold someone else’s heart in their hands. To tide them over. Sometimes, he’s heard, they find someone who will let them do that in thin times. Sometimes, he’s heard, they find someone whose heart is theirs to hold no matter when.

They’re different from him, though. Jinyoung has a heart. He still steals hearts.

It’s just that now it makes him feel sicker and sicker every time he does it.

* * *

He _doesn’t_ steal Yeeun’s heart, despite what Jaebeom’s suspicious eyes say, the one time they cross paths in the new JYP building. Jaebeom is presumably on a break from dance practice and Jinyoung is taking a break from the cloying combination of uncertain eagerness and polite cuteness. He doesn’t need to wear Yeeun’s heart to read the way they barely veil simmering ambition.

Jaebeom honestly makes Jinyoung so angry that he steals Namkoong Min’s heart when he runs into him and Junho-hyung having drinks at a nearby bar. The kind you go to not to be seen and where the staff are paid well enough not to sell stories to Dispatch. Junho gives him this look but doesn’t stop him. Honestly, that should’ve made Jinyoung think twice.

Namkoong Min’s heart feels sad and deliberate, and it itches. Sometimes when Jinyoung snatches a heart too close to his own that happens. He lets himself into Jaebeom’s place and displaces the heart onto the first cat that wanders up to him.

It’s Odd this time, because Nora’s curled up on Jaebeom’s face. He’s fallen asleep on the floor again. Jinyoung wonders how long it will be until Jaebeom wakes himself up sneezing.

Odd does the deed instead by hacking up a furball right next to Jaebeom’s ear. The noise is truly disgusting. Jinyoung bursts out laughing so hard he has to fold down onto the floor, where he is promptly covered in cats. The cats all know about him by now, and like to butter him up with nudges and kneading so that they get hearts.

“You’re upset with me.” Jaebeom’s voice, quiet but sure, cuts into his thoughts.

He’s sat up in the last few moments, and is now easing a hand over Odd’s back. Nora wanders up to Jinyoung and sets her claws into his knee.

“I was,” Jinyoung says. He is, a little, but not because of the way Jaebeom squinted at him earlier that day. He’s upset in general: lonely, stressed, missing his boys, trying to figure out which Jinyoung he has to be around an entire drama shoot of new people. He’s stretched thin like too little butter scraped over too much toast. Tolkien had the right of it. Maybe he’d been a heart-stealer too. “Not anymore.”

Now he’s mostly just upset with himself. Jinyoung walks over on his knees to settle in Jaebeom’s lap. This is still so new, so fragile, and was such a long fucking time coming that Jinyoung doesn’t want to fight.

He wants to ask if he can just hold Jaebeom’s heart in his hands. He won’t take it. He just wants to hold it and feel. Wants to know if maybe that will sate him. Jinyoung thinks that probably won’t work. You don’t patch yourself up with someone else’s heart.

“What did I do?” Jaebeom asks, hands settling on Jinyoung’s hips. The sharp cut of them is a recurring surprise for Jaebeom. It’s obvious to Jinyoung, the way he blinks when he squeezes and encounters no softness at all.

“Nothing,” Jinyoung says. “You didn’t do anything.”

“That is patently untrue.”

Jinyoung sighs and leans in. Down and in. Tucks his head into the crook of Jaebeom’s neck. He’s so tired. They’re both so tired all the time now. He hadn’t taken anyone’s heart in _months_ , trying out this self-meditation app thing Doyoung texted him about. Scooping Namkoong Min’s heart and carrying it with him to Jaebeom’s just ... the off-kilter high of feeling like his chest was stuffed full wasn’t really worth the drop. Left that weird itchy aftertaste.

“I made shit up in my head,” Jinyoung says. It’s easier to say when he doesn’t have to look at Jaebeom. “And got mad about it. Okay?”

“Not okay.” Jaebeom noses at his head. “Yah, don’t hide from me.”

“I stole someone’s heart on a whim because you gave me that look this morning and it pissed me off.” Jinyoung rips the bandage off in one go.

“...what look?” Jaebeom sounds lost.

Jinyoung bites his neck. “See? I told you. I made shit up in my head.”

“Jin _young_.”

“I thought you thought I’d stolen Yeeun’s heart.” Jinyoung grits out. “And were judging me for something I didn’t do. Didn’t even want to do.”

Jaebeom grips Jinyoung by jaw and tilts his face up. He doesn’t look angry, is the thing. His touch isn’t angry. It’s something Jinyoung doesn’t want to put a name to yet.

“No,” Jaebeom says. “To both of those things. Never.”

* * *

Jinyoung wonders if the acting is just him trying to fill in some gap, because the books didn’t really work. Like he literally has to try to become another person if sinking into someone else’s story doesn’t work. Like it’s the closest thing he can get to having another person’s heart nestled under his ribs, to having another person’s feelings settle over his own unknowable personality like a fine mesh.

* * *

For some reason planes are significant places in Jinyoung’s personal journey of. Whatever. Self-discovery? He’s been trying on the self-possessed maturity thing for some years now, and it feels like it might be sinking into his bones now. As though the things he’s been telling himself — calm here; laugh there; be kinder at this point; lean into the mischief now; there’s no need to say anything at the moment — have, like running water slowly carving channels into stone, unconsciously become part of him.

He does wonder if the performance has become reality; the eternal conundrum of life, art or art, life. Wonders if it even matters at this point, when anything else — any _one_ else would probably be uncomfortable. Maybe this is what Junho-hyung meant all those years ago when he told Jinyoung there were some things you couldn’t figure out by trying on other people’s hearts.

It’s not like he isn’t still tempted to sometimes just scoop someone’s heart into his own chest, right as they look like they’re about to experience the crest of some head-spinning, foreign emotion that Jinyoung’s only been able to pretend at. It is also true that he’s been wanting to less and less often.

But, still. Maybe a conscious decision is called for.

Jinyoung nudges Jaebeom, who’s been sat next to him. They never bothered with raising the barrier between their seats. Earlier, Youngjae gladly exchanged Jaebeom’s seat for one with a window view with a terribly knowing grin.

“Hyung,” he whispers. Everyone around there is either sleeping or watching movies. The cabin is dimmed in some approximation of night, after the meal service. It will be daytime when they land in New York. Time will soon cease to have any meaning at all over the next few months. “Hey, Jaebeom-ah.”

Jaebeom jerks out of a doze, cheek pillowed against the pink flight pillow he’d stolen from Jinyoung a long time ago. “Eh?”

“Sorry,” Jinyoung murmurs, glancing around quickly before reaching over to slides his fingers through Jaebeom’s. “Just, I need to —

It’s really cute, the way Jaebeom blinks stupidly at him, before his cheeks blaze pink abruptly.

“No, _no_.” Jinyoung squeezes their fingers and shakes. “Not that, oh my god, Jaebeom-ah.”

“Oh,” says Jaebeom. Does he sound a little disappointed?

Jinyoung almost lets himself get distracted before he forges on, “No, I ... how do I say this? I’m going to try to not. You know.” He slides their joined hands up to press against Jaebeom’s chest, just under his sternum. “Anymore.”

“Oh.” Looking more awake, Jaebeom drops his gaze to his chest before looking back up and repeating himself. “Oh! You want my help?”

“Yes.” Jinyoung lets their hands drop back into Jaebeom’s lap. “Like me watching your diet.”

“Of course I will.” Jinyoung’s grateful, so so grateful for Jaebeom’s easy acceptance. Jaebeom smiles at him a little, then cocks his head, brows drawing together a little. “But ... all of a sudden?”

“Not...really.” It’s a good question, but. “I think it’s been coming for a while now.”

Jaebeom hums in acknowledgement.

A comfortable quiet falls.

* * *

Re-debuting is nervewracking as fuck. There’s something to be said about knowing _exactly_ how much there is to lose.

But they do well enough, and their album does well enough, and so at the year-end company Christmas party Jinyoung is feeling loose and hopeful, brimming over with jolly stolen hearts high on the party spirit.

He’s clingy by nature, something he experiences flashes of doubt about, but today he is over twenty, legally allowed to drink, and _has_ partaken. Both of the bubbly prosecco and the hearts, so easy to take when people think that tipsy Jinyoung initiating skinship is adorable. He’s bubbling over with alcohol in his veins, the two extra hearts he’s stowed away in his chest, and the three he’s putting in Jaebeom’s backpack, hidden in the cloakroom.

“What,” says Jaebeom, voice echoing in the dark room. “The hell are you doing?”

Jinyoung is admittedly crouched over his backpack, but he’d stolen Jihyo’s heart just as she’d been laughing over some newfangled aegyo _thing_ with Bambam. So Jinyoung is feeling chirpy and cute down to the marrow, cuter than he knows he already is, when he looks up and aims a disarming smile at Jaebeom.

Jaebeom takes a step back. “Are you drunk?”

This makes Jinyoung laugh, a hiccuping thing that probably won’t disabuse Jaebeom of the notion. “No, I’m ... not drunk on wine. I think.” He takes his hands back out of Jaebeom’s backpack, where the three stolen hearts are now safe and comfily nestled in the folds of Jaebeom’s squashed-up hoodie.

“Then ...” Jaebeom’s face changes with the realisation. He points at his backpack. “Are you _making me an accomplice_?”

“Nobody’s ever going to charge me of a crime they can’t see, hyung,” Jinyoung gets up and makes to saunter past Jaebeom with all the breezy confidence of Nickhun-hyung lending a little buoyancy to his steps.

Jaebeom catches him by the arm. “Put them back, Jinyoung.”

“It’s just for a while.” Jinyoung pouts at him. “I will whenever I see them around the company next week.”

“Jinyoungie,” Jaebeom says, sternness bending into pleading. “Please.”

And _that’s_ rare enough to get Jinyoung to stop, sigh, relent. “Fine. But you’re helping me look for them.”

What neither of them know is that this is how it starts, the first time Jaebeom helps Jinyoung with his little heart-stealing habit.

* * *

Jinyoung isn’t being sent to the Jungle, which is a good thing because he hates the idea of roughing it out when _he doesn't have to_. He’s going to have to rough it out within a year, anyway. Jaebeom pretends disappointment even though it’s been forever since _he_ was on the show. Jinyoung’s honestly surprised it’s still going on, though he supposes the entertainment industry is unlikely to ever run out of idols to send into uncivilised purgatory.

So they bicker about the necessity of what Jaebeom calls basic survival skills and Jinyoung calls “skills to be acquired as-needed”, until it properly hits Jaebeom that they're sending Jinyoung to The Return of Superman instead.

"Jinyoungie," he says, traces of teasing in his voice. "You won’t —

Jinyoung knocks his knee into Jaebeom’s forcefully. "I have never stolen _babies' hearts_. I love babies!"

"I actually meant the — who are you visiting? Sam Hammington? Oh god, please don't steal his heart. He has too many children."

Jinyoung snorts. "I don't actually want to know what it's like to be at risk of cardiac arrest, thanks."

Jaebeom laugh-groans and tips his head back, knocking it into the wall. “Jinyoungie.”

"This is why I stole Youngjae's heart." Jinyoung puts a hand on Jaebeom's thigh, keeps his tone light to distract from the confession. "So I'd know what it'd be like to be a good person. Kind of."

“What?!” Jaebeom’s eyes have gone big, head whipping around. “ _Nyoung-ah_. Didn’t we talk about this way back when — argh, never mind. When?"

"It was only for like five minutes." Jinyoung knows he sounds defensive.

" _When_?"

"God, I don't know," Jinyoung sighs. It was so long ago. When he was so, so jealous of having to share Jaebeom with other people. Scared of Jaebeom giving others his affection. "Early on. I felt bad so I put it back. He didn't feel a single thing.”

He pauses and checks in with himself. Thinks about taking a heart and feels only indifference to the idea.

“I haven’t felt like stealing one in ages, anyway."

“I know,” Jaebeom says. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you're going to be at the scotiabank arena tonight I'm gonna be the totally confused-looking noona fan with 0 merch and no idea what any of the fanchants are, sorry. 
> 
> also thanks for reading. hit that kudos button if this made you feel a feeling!


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